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Category: Fire Emblem

It's been just over one year since Fire Emblem Heroes launched on the iOS App Store in the United States, Japan, and over 30 other countries, and this week new data researched by Sensor Tower has titled the app as Nintendo and DeNA's "most successful mobile game to date." Over the course of its first year, Fire Emblem Heroes earned an estimated $295 million in player spending worldwide, helped by the game's free-to-play structure that includes in-app purchases of various items like game-boosting "Orbs."

The other Nintendo/DeNA apps include the soon-to-be-discontinuedMiitomo, Super Mario Run, and the most recent game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which has earned about $20 million across the iOS App Store and Google Play Store in the two months since release. In comparison, Fire Emblem Heroes earned $86 million in its first two months after launch, following an initial slow start in the first few days.

Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes is the Kyoto-based gaming giant’s most successful mobile game to date, earning an estimated $295 million in worldwide player spend during its first year of availability, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data.

With players worldwide continuing to spend more than $10 million per month on “luck of the draw” character draws, Fire Emblem Heroes is a clearly a financial success for Nintendo and DeNA. The question now is whether the publisher-developer duo can progress to the next echelon of mobile gaming revenue with future titles, including the recently announced Mario Kart Tour.

In terms of worldwide mobile game revenue, Sensor Tower reported that Fire Emblem Heroes ranked at No. 34 in January on the iOS App Store, while Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp sat at No. 190. Furthermore, Fire Emblem Heroes is said to have been successful both in the U.S. and Japan, with 30 percent of the game's first year revenue coming from the former country and 60 percent from the latter. For Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, 13 percent of its revenue so far has been made in the U.S., and more than 82 percent comes from Japan.

Although the games support different payment structures, Sensor Tower compared Fire Emblem Heroes with Super Mario Run, which earned $56 million across its first year in worldwide revenue. Super Mario Run was a bigger hit initially as many players downloaded the game in the first few weeks of launch -- earning $8.4 million on its first day -- but slacked off in subsequent months. The game is free-to-download so that users can play the first few levels, but a $9.99 payment is required to unlock everything.

During Nintendo's quarterly earnings report last fall, the company admitted that Super Mario Run had "not yet reached an acceptable profit point" ten months after launch, while Fire Emblem Heroes was on track to meet its business and profit objectives. For Super Mario Run, the company stated that it had "learned a lot in terms of game development and deployment," which it will "take advantage of moving forward." Nintendo is also reportedly looking for new mobile developers to partner with in addition to DeNA.

While Fire Emblem Heroes has been successful for Nintendo and DeNA, it's still lagging behind the breakout hits on the iOS App Store, like Clash Royale ($967 million in first year worldwide revenue) and Niantic's Pokémon Go ($1.1 billion). Nintendo's next mobile gameMario Kart Tourwill be free-to-start, which is terminology that Nintendo has used to describe the in-app purchase model of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Previous rumors have also stated the company could be working on a smartphone game set in The Legend of Zelda universe.

Nintendo recently reported earnings for its fiscal third quarter of 2017, including data related to the company's two-year-old smartphone game business. In the report, Nintendo confirmed that its smart device and intellectual property related earnings increased from 10.6 billion yen (about $98 million) in the nine months ended December 31, 2016 to 29.1 billion yen (about $267 million) in the same period in 2017.

While this includes income from Nintendo's smartphone games as well as royalty income, Bloomberg reported that Nintendo's smartphone game profits specifically grew from 8.8 billion yen in the year-ago quarter to 11.2 billion yen this fiscal quarter. The only smartphone game that launched this fiscal quarter for Nintendo was Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which is said to have generated $17 million globally and reached a download number of 22 million since its launch in November. The other major smartphone game to debut from Nintendo in 2017 was Fire Emblem Heroes.

Nintendo said it plans to get its players to continue returning to and enjoying previously released iOS and Android games through ongoing updates, not including the recently confirmed imminent shut down of its first iOS app Miitomo.

In our smart-device business, consumers not only continued to enjoy Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, which became available for download during the previous fiscal year, but also had fun with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, released globally during October and November. Smart devices and IP related income were up to 29.1 billion yen (172% increase on a year-on-year basis).

In our smart-device business, we will focus on operations that encourage more consumers to continue to enjoy playing the applications that they have downloaded

Although Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp are free-to-download apps, they're believed to net Nintendo more of a profit in the long run thanks to players who become enticed to spend money on in-app purchases. Alternatively, Super Mario Run is a free-to-start app where users can play a few levels and then must spend $9.99 to gain access to the full game.

At one point, Nintendo described the freemium model of Fire Emblem Heroes as an "outlier" in its overall smartphone game plan and that it prefers Super Mario Run's pay-once structure, but so far that's been the only app to go that route. Additionally, the company's previous earnings report mentioned Super Mario Run had yet to reach an "acceptable profit point" around 10 months after launch.

Otherwise, Nintendo's earnings report detailed a huge success for the company's Switch console, selling 12.13 million units from April to December 2017 and now totaling 14.86 million units sold to date. Upon this report, Nintendo increased its operating profit outlook from 120 billion yen to 160 billion yen for the year ending March 2018, and bumped up the Switch sales forecast from the already-surpassed 14 million units to 15 million units for the same period.

Nintendo's newly-announced iOS game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, has soft launched in the Australian iOS App Store, a launch rollout that Nintendo has begun to favor as a way to test its iOS apps prior to a worldwide debut. According to new data gathered by Sensor Tower, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp climbed to the top of the Australian App Store much faster than either Super Mario Run or Fire Emblem Heroes.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp debuted quite high among all iPhone apps on the Australian App Store, hitting around number 2 within the first hour of its soft launch on October 25. Afterwards, the new game reached the number 1 spot on the Australian App Store within 12 hours of its debut. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is Nintendo's fourth smartphone game made in partnership with developer DeNA, following Miitomo, Super Mario Run, and Fire Emblem Heroes.

Hourly App Store category rankings from Sensor Tower App Intelligence show Nintendo’s third mobile game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, off to a strong start in its Australian soft launch on iOS. According to the data, the game reached No. 1 among all iPhone apps faster than Nintendo’s previous mobile releases, Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, hitting the impressive milestone within 12 hours of its launch on October 25.

Comparatively, Super Mario Run debuted just below the number 40 ranking. It then hit number 2 after 12 hours on the App Store in Australia, and finally obtained the number 1 spot 14 hours after its soft launch in the country last December.

Fire Emblem Heroes was ranked at number 35 at the 12 hour mark of its respective Australian soft launch earlier this year, and only made it as high as number 13 among all iPhone apps. Fire Emblem isn't quite as well-known a franchise as Mario or Animal Crossing, leading to low download rates on launch day in the United States.

Sensor Tower also reported that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is currently ranked at number 117 among the top grossing iPhone apps in Australia. The game uses "Leaf Tickets" as its form of in-app purchase, allowing players to circumvent certain lengthy wait times for item and furniture building, supplement tickets for crafting materials, add in exclusive animals to their town like Tom Nook and K.K. Slider, and more.

Next, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is set to launch worldwide in late November, although Nintendo hasn't yet confirmed a release date. You can pre-register to be notified as soon as the game hits the App Store in your supported country on Nintendo's website right here.

As Nintendo keeps launching new properties onto smartphones, the company has taken different strategies in regards to each app's payment model, including free-to-play (Miitomo, Fire Emblem Heroes) and pay-once-and-play (Super Mario Run). According to a senior official at the company, Nintendo actually "prefers" the Super Mario Run model over Fire Emblem Heroes, despite the more lucrative future that Fire Emblem Heroes' in-app purchases have in store for Nintendo (via Nikkei).

According to Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima, Super Mario Run's revenue "did not meet" the company's expectations. Ahead of the game's release, it was reported that Nintendo was eyeing a pay-once model so that parents could download Super Mario Run for their kids without the added anxiety of in-app purchases appearing later in their iTunes purchase history.

It appears that the gaming company still intends for most of its future apps to follow in Super Mario Run's footsteps and not those of Fire Emblem Heroes, with a senior company official referring to Heroes as "an outlier" in the grand scheme of Nintendo's mobile strategy.

Yet [Super Mario Run] was less of a moneymaker for Nintendo than might have been expected, due to the pay-once-and-play model. Revenue from the game "did not meet our expectations," Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima said.

Even so, Nintendo has no intention of switching focus to freemium games. "'Heroes' is an outlier," a senior company official said. "We honestly prefer the 'Super Mario Run' model."

The company is believed to care more about expanding the reach of its intellectual properties to a wider audience and "aims to do more with its smartphone games than make money." Another goal for Nintendo is to mine the potential synergy future apps could have with the new Switch console, where players pick up the app to get hooked, and are convinced to further explore -- and spend more money -- on a larger version of the game.

According to Nikkei, the long-term success of Super Mario Run will be measured in how well it turns new Nintendo fans into console players and buyers: "The game's true value will be measured by how much it expands the ranks of Nintendo fans and helps sales of the Switch."

Last year, Isao Moriyasu -- Chief Executive of DeNA, Nintendo's mobile app developer partner -- said that the next two Nintendo apps would be "free-to-start apps," referring to Fire Emblem Heroes and Animal Crossing, which was recently delayed. Super Mario Run is technically free-to-start as well, allowing players to mess around with a few story levels and modes before asking for the monetary investment to unlock the full game. This week, that free section was expanded slightly in the game's version 2.0 update.

Players can purchase game-boosting "Orbs" in Fire Emblem Heroes

In terms of payment models, the distinction between Fire Emblem Heroes and Super Mario Run is clear, and it appears that Nintendo intends to keep focused on higher-priced gaming apps instead of the more popular freemium model. Looking towards the future, we still only know that Animal Crossing is set to appear next on mobile devices, likely sometime later this year. Unfortunately, today's news muddies the waters regarding that game's payment strategy, since it's now unclear whether it will lean towards Fire Emblem Heroes' freemium model, as Moriyasu said, or be part of Nintendo's preference for a pay-once option.

Nintendo's newly released game Fire Emblem Heroes earned an estimated $2.9 million in worldwide gross revenue during its first 24 hours of availability, according to data shared by app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Since being released yesterday morning for iOS and Android devices, Fire Emblem Heroes has been downloaded more than two million times from the iOS App Store and the Google Play store. Download numbers may have been affected by a late release in the United States - the game didn't become available on iOS devices until the afternoon.

At $2.9 million in gross revenue, Fire Emblem Heroes is not quite the hit that Pokémon GO and Super Mario Run were. Pokémon Go earned an estimated $10.2 million during its first 24 hours of availability, while Super Mario Run brought in $8.4 million.

It was also not downloaded quite as many times, likely due to the fact that the Fire Emblem series isn't as well known as the Mario or Pokémon franchises nor was it as heavily promoted. Pokémon GO was downloaded an estimated 4.2 million times on day one, while Super Mario Run, was downloaded an estimated 6 million times.

Unsurprisingly, Fire Emblem Heroes has proven to be most popular in Japan, with the United States coming in second.

Bringing classic titles to iOS devices has thus far proven to be a successful venture for Nintendo. Super Mario Runset an App Store record with 40 million downloads in just four days. Since its December release, Super Mario Run has brought in more than $53 million in revenue with more than 78 million downloads.

Nintendo plans to continue releasing a steady stream of iOS games, with popular series Animal Crossing said to be one of the next games on the horizon. Nintendo originally said Animal Crossing would be released by March, but recently delayed the title until the following financial year, which runs from April 2017 to March 2018.

Fire Emblem Heroes can be downloaded from the App Store for free. It doesn't cost anything up front, but Nintendo makes money on the game through in-app purchases for speeding up gameplay. [Direct Link]

Nintendo's newly released game Fire Emblem Heroes earned an estimated $2.9 million in worldwide gross revenue during its first 24 hours of availability, according to data shared by app analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Since being released yesterday morning for iOS and Android devices, Fire Emblem Heroes has been downloaded more than two million times from the iOS App Store and the Google Play store. Download numbers may have been affected by a late release in the United States - the game didn't become available on iOS devices until the afternoon.

At $2.9 million in gross revenue, Fire Emblem Heroes is not quite the hit that Pokémon GO and Super Mario Run were. Pokémon Go earned an estimated $10.2 million during its first 24 hours of availability, while Super Mario Run brought in $8.4 million.

It was also not downloaded quite as many times, likely due to the fact that the Fire Emblem series isn't as well known as the Mario or Pokémon franchises nor was it as heavily promoted. Pokémon GO was downloaded an estimated 4.2 million times on day one, while Super Mario Run, was downloaded an estimated 6 million times.

Unsurprisingly, Fire Emblem Heroes has proven to be most popular in Japan, with the United States coming in second.

Bringing classic titles to iOS devices has thus far proven to be a successful venture for Nintendo. Super Mario Runset an App Store record with 40 million downloads in just four days. Since its December release, Super Mario Run has brought in more than $53 million in revenue with more than 78 million downloads.

Nintendo plans to continue releasing a steady stream of iOS games, with popular series Animal Crossing said to be one of the next games on the horizon. Nintendo originally said Animal Crossing would be released by March, but recently delayed the title until the following financial year, which runs from April 2017 to March 2018.

Fire Emblem Heroes can be downloaded from the App Store for free. It doesn't cost anything up front, but Nintendo makes money on the game through in-app purchases for speeding up gameplay. [Direct Link]

Nintendo's newest mobile smartphone game, Fire Emblem Heroes, is officially rolling out globally on the iOS App Store [Direct Link], with players in Japan, Australia, and Europe already able to download it. Announced last spring, Fire Emblem on smartphones adopts the tactical role-playing gameplay of the popular franchise, with a few mobile-optimized tweaks. These changes mainly center around battle maps that have been designed to specifically fit smartphone screens.

To attack, players tap and drag their allies over the enemy forces, while paying attention to a rock-paper-scissors weapon types system that greatly affects attack power in the heat of battle. The main game lies in the "Story Maps," where players will fight through enemy defenses to complete objectives, eventually earning Orbs that summon classic Fire Emblem characters to fight for them in battle.

Orbs will be one of the monetization points of Fire Emblem Heroes, as players can also choose to skip earning them through Story Maps and pay for the booster item in the game's shop. Nintendo hasn't yet detailed what else will be available as an in-app purchase in the game, but it did confirmFire Emblem Heroes will be free-to-download with IAPs as its main revenue model.

Also included in the game will be an Arena mode where players can fight against rivals around the world to earn high scores, increase rankings, and get exclusive rewards to increase the abilities of each hero. Additionally, Training Tower will let players hone their Fire Emblem skills with randomly generated maps, and Hero Battles will pit players against new Heroes during limited events -- winning will convince them to become an ally.

The official website for Fire Emblem Heroes has more information about gameplay, including its Home screen where players will check notifications, view their friend list, and peruse various other front-end features each time they log in. Fire Emblem Heroes is launching simultaneously on the iOS App Store and Google Play, similar to Miitomo but unlike Super Mario Run, which remains exclusive to Apple devices with a planned launch on Android in March.

For those keeping count, that makes Fire Emblem Heroes the third official release for Nintendo's original smartphone gaming plan it detailed back in 2015. We now know that Animal Crossing and the unknown fifth game won't launch before March, and Nintendo recently reported that its future on mobile devices won't end after the launch of the fifth game made through its partnership with DeNA. This week, the company confirmed its intention to release two to three smartphone games every year.

The game will be available in over 30 countries by the end of today, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, and more. The full list of launch countries can be found within a link in the top right section on the official Fire Emblem Heroes website.

Fire Emblem Heroes is available as a free download on the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]

Nintendo today officially announcedFire Emblem: Heroes, its next planned mobile game launching on iOS and Android devices in the near future. Positioned as a tactical roleplaying game in the Fire Emblem universe, Fire Emblem: Heroes will allow players to level up popular characters from the series and engage in strategic battles.

According to Nintendo, the game features a new, original storyline focusing on two warring kingdoms coming together in a bitter clash. Players take on the role of summoners, calling various historic Fire Emblem characters into epic fights.

Each battle map is an 8x6 square designed to fit on a smartphone's screen, where players will engage in tactical fights with multiple allies and enemies on the battlefield.

Simple controls are included, such as dragging an ally onto an enemy to attack, and a battle victory is achieved when every enemy on a given map is defeated. Nintendo says that despite the simple controls, Fire Emblem fans will find the battle intensity they've come to expect from the series.

Fire Emblem: Heroes will be available on the Google Play store starting on February 2. Nintendo did not announce a specific release date for iOS devices, saying only that the game will be "available soon."

Back in 2015, Nintendo promised to release five smartphone games by March of 2017. The company originally said its Fire Emblem game, along with a new game in the Animal Crossing series, would be released in the fall of 2016, but Nintendo did not make that deadline. While we now have concrete information on the planned Fire Emblem game, there is still no word on when we might see the promised Animal Crossing game for iOS.